The Volunteer: The Failure of the Death Penalty in America and One Inmate's Quest to Die with Dignity
by Gianna Toboni
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"A riveting account of one death row inmate's quest to die-and a fearless look at how America's system of punishment has failed the public it claims to serve. When Scott Dozier was sent to Nevada's death row in 2007, convicted of a pair of grisly murders, he didn't cry foul or embark upon a protracted innocence campaign. He sought instead to expedite his execution-to hasten his inevitable death. He decided he would rather face his end swiftly than die slowly in solitary confinement. In show more volunteering for execution, Dozier may have been unusual. But in the tortuous events that led his death date to be scheduled and rescheduled, planned and then stayed, his time on death row was anything but. In The Volunteer, Emmy award-winning investigative reporter Gianna Toboni traces the twists and turns of Dozier's story, along the way offering a hard look at the history and controversy that surround the death penalty today. Toboni reveals it to be a system rife with black market dealings and supply chain labyrinths, with disputed drugs and botched executions. Today's death penalty, generally carried out through lethal injection, has proven so cumbersome, ineffective, and potentially harrowing that some states have considered a return to the electric chairs and firing squads of the past, believing those approaches to be not only more effective but more humane. No matter where you stand on the morality of capital punishment, there's no denying that the death penalty is failing the American public. With costs running into the billions and countless lives kept in limbo, it has proven incapable of achieving its desired end: executing the inmates that fellow Americans have deemed guilty of the most heinous crimes. With The Volunteer, Toboni offers an insightful and profound look at how the death penalty went so terribly wrong. A spellbinding story down to its shocking conclusion, it brings to light the horrifying realities of state-sanctioned killings-realities that many would prefer to ignore"-- show lessTags
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"The Volunteer" is a sobering book about the capital punishment machine in America, the attempts to whitewash it in the form of lethal injections, the fight between departments of corrections and the anti-capital groups trying to get restrictions on how the drugs can be used in correctional settings, and the story of Scott Dozier -- a former death row inmate in Nevada who tried to force the state to execute him -- as told by Gianna Tobini, a Vice News reporter.
As someone who’s spent a bit of time working on death penalty cases (though in a pretty limited role) and as someone who has a bit of a morbid curiosity on the generalities of the death penalty, the entire book itself is well written: the only part of Tobini’s book that really show more bugged me was her claim that Tennessee’s electric chair was operated by a simple switch. In reality, the control device used by the state was made by Fred Leuchter yes, that Fred Leuchter -- who made a business out of selling execution systems to states. He even had a reputation for shaking them down a bit, offering to testify against their methods if they didn’t hire him. The documentary Mr. Death, does a great job digging into his sketchy (at best) qualifications and the weird, uncomfortable role he played in the death penalty world. I think Mr. Dozier's larger-than-life personality (and crimes) are a large part of the story itself, but Tobini does a great job of arranging her book to tell the story behind lethal injection's origins, the struggle between the states and the federal government around getting drugs to execute the inmates on death row, and the fight to keep those drugs out of state's hands by the anti-death penalty groups as well as the drug manufactures themselves while including the reality behind why those inmates (including Dozier) are on Death row.
If you like true crime novels, are interested in the death penalty and the politics behind it (having a state rep say that the more he interacts with the ineptitude with the government, the less certain he is about the death penalty is a harrowing quote about the process and how it's applied), or are just curious about the business of how and why the states execute inmates, this book should be on your short list of items to read. show less
As someone who’s spent a bit of time working on death penalty cases (though in a pretty limited role) and as someone who has a bit of a morbid curiosity on the generalities of the death penalty, the entire book itself is well written: the only part of Tobini’s book that really show more bugged me was her claim that Tennessee’s electric chair was operated by a simple switch. In reality, the control device used by the state was made by Fred Leuchter yes, that Fred Leuchter -- who made a business out of selling execution systems to states. He even had a reputation for shaking them down a bit, offering to testify against their methods if they didn’t hire him. The documentary Mr. Death, does a great job digging into his sketchy (at best) qualifications and the weird, uncomfortable role he played in the death penalty world. I think Mr. Dozier's larger-than-life personality (and crimes) are a large part of the story itself, but Tobini does a great job of arranging her book to tell the story behind lethal injection's origins, the struggle between the states and the federal government around getting drugs to execute the inmates on death row, and the fight to keep those drugs out of state's hands by the anti-death penalty groups as well as the drug manufactures themselves while including the reality behind why those inmates (including Dozier) are on Death row.
If you like true crime novels, are interested in the death penalty and the politics behind it (having a state rep say that the more he interacts with the ineptitude with the government, the less certain he is about the death penalty is a harrowing quote about the process and how it's applied), or are just curious about the business of how and why the states execute inmates, this book should be on your short list of items to read. show less
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- Politics and Government, Nonfiction, Sociology, General Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 364.660973 — Society, Government, and Culture Social problems and social services Crime Punishment Death penalty
- LCC
- HV8699 .U5 .T63 — Social sciences Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminal justice administration Penology. Prisons. Corrections
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